1. Field of the Invention
The present invention provides a portable electronic device, and in particular, a portable electronic device with a plurality of operation modes and configurations.
2. Descriptions of the Related Art
With the advancement of manufacturing processing and mobile communication technologies, portable electronic devices are becoming increasingly popular and also gradually miniaturized in size. To satisfy the various demands of users, portable electronic devices can be designed into different structures to provide users with more diversified operation styles.
For example, to allow users to browse information displayed on the screens of the portable electronic devices more clearly and input relatively complex instructions, current portable electronic devices are designed with both a larger and wider display and a keyboard comprising multiple keys. Because these components occupy a large volume, common portable electronic devices currently available have either a clamshell or slide design for convenience.
The operation of a portable electronic device 1 with a slide design is shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B. The portable electronic device 1 comprises a first body portion 11 and a second body portion 13, in which the first body portion 11 is provided with a keyboard 111 and the second body portion 13 is provided with a display 131. In more detail, FIG. 1A illustrates a configuration where the portable electronic device 1 is closed. In this configuration, the portable electronic device 1 mainly exposes the display 131 at the front of the second body portion 13 and keys 15 located at the side to apply general operations such as simple instruction input, incoming call answering and so on. In reference to FIG. 1B, when the input of a relatively complex instruction with the keyboard is needed, the second body portion 13 can be slid with respect to the first body portion 11 to expose the keyboard 111.
Hence, when using the conventional portable electronic device, the user can only rely on himself or herself to adjust the portable electronic device to a particular angle with respect to the user's eyes for comfortable watching depending on the different use conditions and environmental brightness. In other words, when the user operates the portable electronic device at different operational conditions (e.g., held in a hand or placed on a desk), the optimal viewing angle of the portable electronic device may vary. Hence, using the portable electronic device under different conditions by only adjusting the orientation in which it is held in the hand by the user would fail to satisfy the user's needs during an extended time of use, thereby causing inconvenience.
In view of this, this invention provides a portable electronic device that can operate at various viewing angles despite the different conditions in which the device may be used.